Wave Soldering: The Soldering Station - An Introduction

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For those of you reading my blog for the first time, you will see that my main focus is on Wave Soldering. I recently completed a series on “preheating” where I talked about the different types of preheaters that could be found in a wave solder machine regardless of manufacturer. Prior to that, I discussed the various fluxers that you can use.

This set of posts will focus on “the soldering station” and will build upon the previous two sections (preheating and fluxers). I’ll start with a short description of the soldering station.

The soldering station includes the solder pot, the pump, and the nozzle. The pot is divided into two chambers, one on top of the other. They are joined by two apertures - one aperture contains the nozzle and the other impels the solder pump. The pump continuously moves the solder through the nozzle and the excess flows back into the solder pot. It is important to keep the channel through which the solder flows clean from dross, burnt flux, and other materials to ensure that the laminar flow of the molten solder is unimpeded.

My next posts will provide information about specific parts and processes of the soldering station:

The solder pot

Solder replenishment

The solder pump

The solder wave:

symmetrical wave

wide symmetrical wave

adjustable symmetrical wave

adjustable asymmetrical wave

Following the hardware portion of the series, I will talk about various solder defects and how to mitigate them in surface mount applications.

*Stay tuned for the next installment: Wave Soldering: The Soldering Station Part I – The Solder Pot. This begins the third mini-series, which is part of the larger program entitled Wave Soldering (A Segmented Synopsis).